


Five Times Bucky Woke up from Cryogenic Sleep

by kyrilu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Guilt, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6891700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the one time he chose to stay awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky Woke up from Cryogenic Sleep

**1.**

The year is 1991, or 1963, or 1967, or any year in history that needs the right disaster at the right time. The Winter Soldier is taken from his sleep gasping, his head jumbled with memories of war and home and empty hollowness, and the words are counted down: _longing...rusted..._

 

**2.**

“Sergeant Barnes,” a voice says, and he opens his eyes to see a hand on the glass of his cryochamber.

He closes his eyes briefly, feels the adrenaline surge in his blood. This is what waking will always be to him: a state of instinctive sharpness, a programmed response from a tamed beast ready to hunt.

“The doctors told me that they need to check on you,” the voice continues. “They have been concerned about you. We have talented medical professionals here in Wakanda, but cryostasis is still, in many ways, a new technology these days.”

Bucky looks at the ringed hand on the glass, at the man standing in front of his chamber, and says, his voice half-hoarse, “Didn’t know I deserved a wake-up greeting from a king. How long--?”

“Two days,” T’Challa says. “The doctors have been running tests. We thought it would be best if you were awakened by someone you’ve met before, instead of a strange medic.”

That’s one way to put it, Bucky thinks. If brawling a couple of times officially counted as ‘met.’ But it’s a good call--Bucky still isn’t sure he can trust his head, and T’Challa could take him if he woke up swinging and crazy.

There’s a part of him that hates having been woken up. He wants to stay under, stay in that mindless void.

But this is only once, he tells himself. And it’s better to play nice in the nation where he’s been offered safe haven.

T’Challa pushes a button, opens the chamber. When Bucky leans forward to climb out, his balance shifts, and he stumbles, forgetting the missing weight where his arm used to be.

“Shit,” he says, a hiss.

He appreciates that T’Challa has stepped a careful distance away, while Bucky’s trying to get ahold of standing right again. It’s not too tough--he’d managed to do it afterwards, despite Stark having blasted it off.

Bucky nods at T’Challa. “You can send in the docs. Don’t worry about it.”

“Very well,” T’Challa says.

Before T’Challa moves to leave, Bucky glances over him--navy blue suit, fanged necklace at his throat. He carries himself regally, smoothly, and there’s something magnetic about him.

“Barnes,” T’Challa says, suddenly, turning to look at him. “Tell me. Why are you so eager to go back to the dark?”

Bucky starts, and he's about to say that he's dangerous, he's a fugitive, and he's a bomb waiting to go off.

Instead he stands still and silent, the place where his metal arm used to be full of dangling wires.

Then he says, “When they found me, what they turned me into, how they kept me…it was winter. They made me for the dark.”

It doesn't make any real sense. But he says it, and he thinks he's afraid of dying and he thinks he’s afraid of killing and he thinks he's afraid of remembering all those damned faces.

T’Challa keeps his gaze on Bucky, steely and composed. Bucky can’t read him. Hell if he knows what a king's thinking. All he knows is that he doesn’t want pity or sympathy because that’s not how this works. It all comes down to the fact that he killed-- _I killed_ \--and the ice is waiting for him.

“You think the dark is your punishment,” T’Challa says, breaking his silence.

“I don’t know if it has to have a grand meaning of anything,” Bucky says. “It just is. I just am.”

 

**3.**

Consciousness again. Bucky blinks awake to that state of an assassin's keen alertness, that thrilled edge of excitement, and he tries to shake it off. It’s nighttime, moonlight visible through a nearby window.

T’Challa is watching him through the glass again.

“We have to move you temporarily,” T’Challa says. “There are representatives from the U.N. coming to Wakanda tomorrow morning. They are here on other business--confirming and sorting out past trade deals. But it’s safer to transfer you to somewhere more secure.”

It takes a while for Bucky to process T’Challa’s explanation, his mind still bleary with the nothingness and numbness of stasis. He fumbles with his remaining arm and carefully steps out from the chamber with one hand holding onto the glass for support.

That’s when he notices that T’Challa isn’t dressed in a suit like he wore last time. He’s in his Black Panther get-up, the hood pushed down.

He looks like he went through a tussle, clothes scuffed up and scratched.

“What happened?” Bucky says. “Is it--?”

“No. Nothing to do with your Avengers. Some foreign mercenaries tried to steal a shipment of vibranium earlier this night. I handled it.” T’Challa says the last sentence definitively, claws flexing at the words.

“Doubling as a king and a bodyguard,” Bucky says with a nod. “Wakanda's lucky to have you.”

He thinks about Steve, captain and soldier all at once during war.

T’Challa lets out a light sound, and Bucky realizes it’s a tired laugh. “Perhaps. It’s harder than I thought it was. I wasn’t a very dutiful prince, Sergeant Barnes. My father…” T’Challa pauses.

Bucky recalls the rage that he could sense when the Black Panther had first confronted him. They were tangled up in each other, fighting, running, landing blows.

“Sorry,” he says, and thinks of Stark’s grief when he rushed him.

“You didn’t kill him,” T’Challa says, shaking his head. “His legacy is a difficult one to live up to. When it comes down to it, Barnes, I am the same man. He died, and I put on my mantle of a warrior and attacked you. I didn’t reason with you to find out your innocence. I didn’t act like a king.”

“And,” T’Challa says, soft and serious, “I am still that same warrior, preferring to chase down the thieves and criminals of night. Being a king is--trying. I know I should pass down the Black Panther mantle onto someone else, but I cannot give it up.”

Bucky feels the urge to say something big. To say something that might matter, inspirational and leader-like like Steve would. But he’s not Steve. He’s the last person to give advice, and he’s definitely not up to advising a king.

“I don’t know, your highness,” he says, quietly, half-turning his head away, hair falling on the side of his face. He says again, “I’m sorry about your father.”

T’Challa’s eyes are understanding, like he knows the limitations of whatever Bucky can offer. Then T’Challa reaches forward and rests a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky almost wants to twitch and brush T’Challa’s hand away. But he breathes, reminds himself who he is and where he is.

He tells himself that he’s safe--he’ll hide in whatever place T’Challa takes him to, and when it’s over, he’s back to the darkness once again.

For now, he closes his eyes and lets himself feel the gentle pressure of T'Challa's hand on his arm.

 

**4.**

The next time he’s brought out of his sleep, he’s face-to-face with Natasha Romanoff.

“Another box?” she says, looking him over.

“Romanoff,” Bucky says. “Why are you here?”

“I was curious,” she says. “Steve’s been gathering us back together. He broke the others out of prison. But you’re not with the team.”

“No. I’m not.”

“He didn’t want to tell us where you were. To keep you safe, he said.”

“The less people know, the better,” Bucky says. Sardonically, “Considering the trouble I caused last time.”

“Reasonable of him,” Romanoff acknowledges. “It was a smart move, placing you under T’Challa’s protection. But he shouldn’t have let you do this.” She gestures to the cryochamber.

“Steve--”

“He shouldn’t have let you run away,” she says. “I have--a complicated past myself. But Clint and Nick Fury gave me a second chance, and I had a new life with SHIELD. I don’t mean that you should take up being an assassin for the Avengers, but you can’t coma yourself into oblivion to make the guilt go away. The world doesn’t work like that, James, even if the science exists.”

She’s coolly angry. This is personal to her, and it’s not really about him. He thinks: _She’s wrong. It isn’t the same._

“It’s not about guilt,” Bucky says. “It’s about the soldier. He’s still in my head.”

“I know,” Romanoff says. “I was--I am dangerous. But this _is_ about guilt, too. You can’t put yourself into a box forever. If you’re in that thing, you might as well be dead.”

She says, “Bucky. Look where you are and what you’ve been given. Don't waste this."

She jabs a button on the cryochamber, and everything goes black.

 

**5 (+1)**

When he opens his eyes again, there’s a vague awareness in his mind that it’s only been several hours since Romanoff woke him up.

She’s gone now. Instead, T’Challa’s standing in front of his chamber again, suit-clad and arms crossed.

“You’re awake,” T’Challa says, and he looks transparently relieved, Bucky notes. “I was told there was an intrusion here last night. We’ve had you under high security, but I have no idea how it was breached.”

“It was Romanoff,” Bucky says.

T’Challa makes a face that probably means _well, that explains it_ , and Bucky can’t help laughing, startled.

At his laugh, T’Challa smiles at Bucky. It's a warm smile. “She could have visited during the day. I would’ve let her say hello with all the security alarms off.”

“She wanted to--talk,” Bucky says. “She wasn’t happy.”

Abruptly, Bucky hauls himself out of his cryochamber. Makes his way to one of the chairs tucked in the room, and T’Challa follows his lead and sits down on a chair across from him.

Bucky slightly inclines his head. He thinks about Romanoff saying: _Look where you are and what you’ve been given._ He thinks about T’Challa telling him about being a warrior as well as a king: _I cannot give it up._ He thinks about T’Challa asking him: _Why are you so eager to go back to the dark?_

He wonders how Wakanda looks like, besides the spare glimpses of green he saw on his way to the hospital and to the safe house. He wants to see T’Challa’s palace, if he has one. He wants to make T’Challa smile at him again.

Looking up, Bucky says, “I don't want to go back to sleep."


End file.
